[3] In September 1875, the family, along with a hundred other people of the town, about a fifth of its population, emigrated to the State of Santa Catarina in Brazil, where they founded the village of Vigolo, now part of Nova Trento.

[3] On 12 July 1890, Visintainer and her friend, Virginia Rosa Nicolodi, under the spiritual direction of a Jesuit priest, Luigi Rossi, committed their lives to religious service, under dedication to the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady.

The congregation, Brazil's first locally founded, grew quickly throughout the state, and in 1903 Pauline was elected their Superior General for life.

[3] In 1909 Pauline was removed from her position as Superior General by Duarte Leopoldo e Silva, Archbishop of São Paulo, following a series of disputes within the congregation.

She was sent to work with the sick at the Santa Casa and the elderly of the Hospice of St. Vincent de Paul at Bragança Paulista, without being able to assume an active role in her own congregation.

[3] Pauline was acknowledged as the "Venerable Mother Foundress", when the Decree of Praise was granted by Pope Pius XI on 19 May 1933 to the Congregation of the Little Sisters, establishing it as one of pontifical right.

One was given to Pope John Paul, the second to the convent where she had lived and is currently housed in the Shrine of St. Paulina in Nova Trento, and the other to her relations, Albert Visintainer and his family of Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, United States.